Friday 12 July 2013


Germany's Merkel rejects NSA-Stasi comparison

'German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected any comparison between U.S. surveillance activities and pervasive snooping by communist East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, insisting in an interview published Wednesday that intelligence work is essential to security in democratic countries.'
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Merkel defends Germany’s cooperation with NSA

'German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended Germany’s cooperation with the US National Security Agency (NSA) amid growing concerns over Washington’s secret surveillance on Europe.
The German weekly Der Spiegel recently reported that the NSA worked closely with German spies in a move which prompted the German opposition to press Merkel on how much she knew about US surveillance tactics.
“For decades, intelligence services have been working together under certain conditions that are tightly regulated in our country, and this serves our security,” Merkel said Wednesday in an interview with the weekly Die Zeit, adding that a certain level of cooperation was required to guarantee the security of German citizens.'